Okay, so let's go to Part II. Is Robert acting freely because he follows his will or deep desire or is his brain activity determining what that will always is by canceling out his will to do anything otherwise? Compatibilists might reply yes to both, insist there is no logical contradiction, dust off their hands and go about their day. But that doesn't seem satisfying; that just seems to kick the can further down the road, off a cliff, and into a swamp abyss. Does that really leave us with freedom?
First let me back up and tell you the inspiration for all this. I came across a quote yesterday while browsing the interwebs that stuck out at me. It was: "“You assume that freedom entails the ability to do the opposite of what one does. I’m persuaded that this is not true.”
You may be thinking, "Huh? So what? That's just compatibilist equivocation." Except that the man who said this was no compatibilist... it was, among all other people, William Lane Craig, a staunch defender of libertarian free will! Here Craig is arguing that God is both free and unable to do Evil (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-god-ab...z2pvbV2JUl).
This inspired Part II of my thought experiment. We are going to input four different terms for Robert, Action A, Action Not-A, and Brain Chemistry: God, Good, Evil, and Nature. Notice that the algorithm has remained the same but now we will apply it to the supernatural agent that theists believe solves our free will conundrum. Thus Part II of the thought experiment is this:
At any particular instant, God has two theoretically possible options: to do Good or some alternative, that is Evil. Due to God’s Nature, which prevents God from doing Evil, God always does Good. As it happens, God’s will is always in agreement with his Nature and thus God always wills himself to do Good instead of Evil. Is God more or less free than Robert?
A few deductions I make from this comparison, in which God’s Good will (Robert’s will to do Action A) always agrees with his Nature (Robert’s Brain Chemistry):
1. The compatibilist answers yes to both questions in Part I. This is logically possible BUT renders free will to be cheap. (You always win if you pick heads and tails!)
2. Traditional (or libertarian) free will is an illusion produced from our inability to know* our inherent Brain Chemistry/Nature at any particular instant. If we had knowledge of them, the illusion would dissolve.
3. God (our supernatural life raft) is in no better shape when it comes to free will, rendering our appeal to supernatural agency futile.
4. Theists cannot logically assert that God is free but unable to do Evil while maintaining that human Evil is only made possible by free will.
*The apparent difference between humans and other animals is their inability to know the illusion.
Today I found a response Craig gave to this criticism. (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/freedom-a...hoose-evil) How? Obfuscation of course! He conflates issues such as God's omnipotence, omniscience, moral perfection, yada-yada, and says, "Nevertheless, I think it’s dubious that God could create a creature which has the ability freely to choose only the Good. Such an ability seems to belong properly only to a nature which has the property of moral perfection, a property that belongs to God alone. A free being which possesses a nature which is characterized by less than complete moral perfection (N.B. that moral perfection differs from mere innocence!) lacks the power to choose infallibly the Good. For God to create a being which has the ability to choose infallibly the Good would be, in effect, to create another God, which is logically impossible, since God is essentially uncaused; and, of course, omnipotence does not entail the ability to bring about the logically impossible."
I don't think that solves anything because it avoids the issue. How is a finite being who is morally perfection equivalent to God? So does my "thought experiment," which is actually an argument against the coherency of libertarian free will, hold weight? Thoughts?
First let me back up and tell you the inspiration for all this. I came across a quote yesterday while browsing the interwebs that stuck out at me. It was: "“You assume that freedom entails the ability to do the opposite of what one does. I’m persuaded that this is not true.”
You may be thinking, "Huh? So what? That's just compatibilist equivocation." Except that the man who said this was no compatibilist... it was, among all other people, William Lane Craig, a staunch defender of libertarian free will! Here Craig is arguing that God is both free and unable to do Evil (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-god-ab...z2pvbV2JUl).
This inspired Part II of my thought experiment. We are going to input four different terms for Robert, Action A, Action Not-A, and Brain Chemistry: God, Good, Evil, and Nature. Notice that the algorithm has remained the same but now we will apply it to the supernatural agent that theists believe solves our free will conundrum. Thus Part II of the thought experiment is this:
At any particular instant, God has two theoretically possible options: to do Good or some alternative, that is Evil. Due to God’s Nature, which prevents God from doing Evil, God always does Good. As it happens, God’s will is always in agreement with his Nature and thus God always wills himself to do Good instead of Evil. Is God more or less free than Robert?
A few deductions I make from this comparison, in which God’s Good will (Robert’s will to do Action A) always agrees with his Nature (Robert’s Brain Chemistry):
1. The compatibilist answers yes to both questions in Part I. This is logically possible BUT renders free will to be cheap. (You always win if you pick heads and tails!)
2. Traditional (or libertarian) free will is an illusion produced from our inability to know* our inherent Brain Chemistry/Nature at any particular instant. If we had knowledge of them, the illusion would dissolve.
3. God (our supernatural life raft) is in no better shape when it comes to free will, rendering our appeal to supernatural agency futile.
4. Theists cannot logically assert that God is free but unable to do Evil while maintaining that human Evil is only made possible by free will.
*The apparent difference between humans and other animals is their inability to know the illusion.
Today I found a response Craig gave to this criticism. (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/freedom-a...hoose-evil) How? Obfuscation of course! He conflates issues such as God's omnipotence, omniscience, moral perfection, yada-yada, and says, "Nevertheless, I think it’s dubious that God could create a creature which has the ability freely to choose only the Good. Such an ability seems to belong properly only to a nature which has the property of moral perfection, a property that belongs to God alone. A free being which possesses a nature which is characterized by less than complete moral perfection (N.B. that moral perfection differs from mere innocence!) lacks the power to choose infallibly the Good. For God to create a being which has the ability to choose infallibly the Good would be, in effect, to create another God, which is logically impossible, since God is essentially uncaused; and, of course, omnipotence does not entail the ability to bring about the logically impossible."
I don't think that solves anything because it avoids the issue. How is a finite being who is morally perfection equivalent to God? So does my "thought experiment," which is actually an argument against the coherency of libertarian free will, hold weight? Thoughts?
